Shibley Telhami
About Shibley Telhami
Speech topics
What happened to the Arab Spring? Understanding the tumult in the Middle East
Extraordinary uprisings are sweeping the Arab world on a scale the region has never witnessed before. Why were analysts and governments surprised? What explains the timing and the scale of these revolts? Who is behind them and for what aims? How are they likely to unfold from country to country? What are the consequences for the United States? Middle East expert speaker Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor at the University of Maryland and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, has been conducting the annual Arab Public Opinion Survey for over a decade which has focused not only on Arab attitudes towards their governments and toward the United States, but also has been documenting the impact of the media on Arab public attitudes. He visited both Tunisia and Egypt immediately after the revolution and conducted several interviews with some of the young people that started it all. He offers his informed perspective.
Books by Shibley Telhami
“The Peace Puzzle: America's Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989–2011” (2017)
Each phase of Arab-Israeli peacemaking has been inordinately difficult in its own right, and every critical juncture and decision point in the long process has been shaped by U.S. politics and the U.S. leaders of the moment. The Peace Puzzle tracks the American determination to articulate policy, develop strategy and tactics, and see through negotiations to agreements on an issue that has been of singular importance to U.S. interests for more than forty years. In 2006, the authors of The Peace Puzzle formed the Study Group on Arab-Israeli Peacemaking, a project supported by the United States Institute of Peace, to develop a set of "best practices" for American diplomacy. The Study Group conducted in-depth interviews with more than 120 policymakers, diplomats, academics, and civil society figures and developed performance assessments of the various U.S. administrations of the post-Cold War period. This book, an objective account of the role of the United States in attempting to achieve a lasting Arab-Israeli peace, is informed by the authors' access to key individuals and official archives.
“Reflections Of Hearts And Minds: Media, Opinion, And Identity In The Arab World (brookings Series On U.s. Policy Toward The Islamic World)” (2015)
From the airing of bin Laden tapes to the coverage of war in Iraq, the rise of the new media in the Middle East is an important and controversial development. When contrasted with the government-controlled media that limited Arab public information and expression in previous decades, the new media, especially satellite television networks such as Al-Jazeera, have moved to the foreground of regional politics and U.S. foreign policy. Utilizing original and ground-breaking public opinion surveys within the Middle East, best-selling author Shibley Telhami lays out the implications of this historic expansion in media activities and outlets. Telhamis timely investigation explores the actual impact of these media on Arab public opinion and, more important, on how they help form notions of identity in the region. Do the media mirror public opinion or do they shape it? Are they reinforcing Arab identity at the expense of state identity in the Arab world? As one of Americas most sought-after intellectuals and commentators on the region, Telhami offers a unique analysis of the trends that will shape the Arab media, and how the U.S. government will interact with them in coming years.
“The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East” (2013)
Once a voiceless region dominated by authoritarian rulers, the Arab world seems to have developed an identity of its own almost overnight. The series of uprisings that began in 2010 profoundly altered politics in the region, forcing many experts to drastically revise their understandings of the Arab people. Yet while the Arab uprisings have indeed triggered seismic changes, Arab public opinion has been a perennial but long ignored force influencing events in the Middle East. In The World Through Arab Eyes, eminent political scientist Shibley Telhami draws upon a decade’s worth of original polling data, probing the depths of the Arab psyche to analyze the driving forces and emotions of the Arab uprisings and the next phase of Arab politics. With great insight into the people and countries he has surveyed, Telhami provides a longitudinal account of Arab identity, revealing how Arabs’ present-day priorities and grievances have been gestating for decades. The demand for dignity foremost in the chants of millions went far beyond a straightforward struggle for food and individual rights. The Arabs’ cries were not simply a response to corrupt leaders, but were in fact inseparable from the collective respect they crave from the outside world. Decades of perceived humiliations at the hands of the West have left many Arabs with a wounded sense of national pride, but also a desire for political systems with elements of Western democracies—an apparent contradiction that is only one of many complicating our understanding of the monumental shifts in Arab politics and society. In astonishing detail and with great humanity, Telhami identifies the key prisms through which Arabs view issues central to their everyday lives, from democracy to religion to foreign relations with Iran, Israel, the United States, and other world powers. The World Through Arab Eyes reveals the hearts and minds of a people often misunderstood but ever more central to our globalized world.
“The Stakes: Univ Of Md Edition” (2004)
This title provides a concise analysis that explains Arab and Muslim attitudes towards the United States and shows why there is much reason for concern.
At a glanceShibley Telhami
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